


Getting To the Heart of Things

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexuality, Denial, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Baggage, F/F, Feelings, Frustration, One-Sided Attraction, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 00:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18062831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: Parker has come a long way since joining the Leverage team. She can move and live in the normal world now, and only draw the occasional raised eyebrow.There are some things though, that even the most supportive family in the world can't help you anticipate.  Some things even a newly minted mastermind has to work through herself.





	Getting To the Heart of Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyjax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyjax/gifts).



> Gotta confess - I'm a little nervous about this one. I went with Prompt #5 because the idea of Parker/Maggie is truly a fascinating one, but it's hard for me to write Parker as having the emotional skills to successfully navigate having a crush on Nate's ex-wife because of her upbringing. I'm also always going to be intrigued by the dramatic possibility that Parker is surrounded now by the most well-meaning, supportive family in the world, and some times they're just going to get it wrong. 
> 
> I hope the results are what you envisioned. Thank you for being patient with me!

They needed a job – something to take her mind off, well, things.

Parker leaned into the wind coming over the top of the parapet wall and tried to let go the worries and fears that had kept her stomach in knots for the past month. _I need to go zip-lining again,_ she thought, catching sight of the nearby Highpoint Tower building. _Or just find something different to scale – didn’t Hardison say that there was a new ‘tallest building in the world’ now?_

“Parker?”

It was only as she dropped back into awareness of her physical body; the cement block under her hands, the roof material under her feet, that Parker realized it was Amy moving cautiously into her peripheral vision. Huffing out a soft breath, the thief-turned mastermind pushed herself upright and turned to face the music, such as it was. “They’re that worried about me, huh?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

It was a rhetorical question – she’d known what was going on even before she clocked the expression on Amy’s face. “There was a video call from Greece,” she said. “I didn’t hear specifics, but I’m pretty sure it was Nate and Sophie. There was a lot of, well…not screaming precisely, but…”

Parker’s chest tightened, even as she nodded her understanding. Nate and Sophie were in Greece this month, something about Sophie reconnecting with her “inner Jackie O” – and ‘not screaming precisely’ was one of the more exacting ways she’d ever heard someone describe Nate’s “displeased” voice.

“The Boss did say that you should have just been honest with them,” Amy added. “He didn’t give me details, though.”

“He would have tried to talk me out of it,” Parker said, although she offered no more information than she suspected Eliot or Hardison had. It was one of the few things she’d come to enjoy about being Leverage International’s de facto mastermind; unless she gave them good reason, people tended not to question her reasons and motives for doing things they way they had when she was a simple thief.

“Eliot said I should tell you that Sophie’s probably going to call you once she’s gotten Nate calmed down,” Amy said. “And he’s with Hardison – you should have been honest with them.”

 _Of course he’s with Hardison,_ Parker thought, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She’d known for years that the hitter liked his relationships messy, and the deeper his and Hardison’s relationship got, the more he seemed determined to prove it…to everyone.

Realizing that Amy had fallen quiet, which meant she had likely delivered the entirety of her message, Parker tried to weigh whether she wanted to send anything back downstairs the same way. _We don’t pay you near enough,_ she thought, putting herself in Amy’s shoes and deciding that even if she was okay with being used as a message carrier by her bosses, that didn’t make it right. “I’ll be down later,” she said finally turning her back on the other woman.

 _Sophie’s probably going to call you. Great._ Parker wasn’t exactly surprised by that news – after all, Sophie was the only other person besides herself who understood _why_ she’d aimed Hardison at Covington Danforth III and pulled the trigger.

That wasn’t going to make it any easier to hear what her emotional mentor had to say on the matter.  
************************************************  
 _”She has a crush on you, you know. Parker. For years now.”_

One plane ride and a rented car drive later, Maggie was still having trouble seizing onto Sophie’s words with any sort of certainty. _She assumed I knew. How exactly would I know?_ Parker had always been different than the rest of her ex-husband’s strange little crew, but aside from her ongoing fascination with Maggie’s hair she had tended to keep herself aloof.

 _Which could be because she didn’t know how to deal with her feelings…_ Unfortunately, even though that made a certain amount of sense, it brought Maggie right back to _“How was I supposed to know?”_

“This is all Nate’s fault.” Shoving her keys in her coat pocket and grabbing her purse, Maggie forced herself out of the car. It was easier blaming her ex husband and all the drama he still brought to every one of their interactions instead of facing the fact that Parker had possibly been nursing romantic or sexual feelings for her for years.

Deciding she didn’t want to risk a public scene, Maggie skirted Bridgeport’s front entrance – instead walking up the long delivery ramp to the door marked “Authorized Personnel Only”.

Hardison and Eliot were alone in the offices when she came through the door. “I didn’t know he was your boyfriend!” Hardison announced immediately, raising his hands in only partially symbolic surrender. “Not until it was too late.”

Eliot’s back had been to her as Maggie came through the door, but in reaction to Hardison, he stepped off his stool and pivoted to face her as well. “In all fairness, Maggie,” he said, “the guy was pretty crooked.”

“I was dating him – not marrying him!” she snapped, feeling her blood pressure start to rise again. “Where’s Parker?”

Hitter and hacker exchanged looks. A beat before Maggie was ready to yell at them to stop messing around, Eliot pointed up. Startled, Maggie looked up reflexively – half expecting to see the blond thief hanging from the overhead beams. When she saw nothing but wood trusses, she looked back at the two men.

“Roof,” Eliot explained. “I’ll show you the way up.”

“You need to go easy on Parker,” the hitter said, once they were out of earshot from Hardison. “I’m sure she was just reacting to how protective we all tend to feel about you.” He was a few steps ahead of her, so Maggie knew he couldn’t see her expression, and what she thought about that. There were days that it was useful…and kind of sweet…that a group of super-criminals had unofficially adopted her.

 _And then there’s today,_ she thought, ruefully. Days like today she wanted to remind them that stalking was illegal in all fifty states, and every time they pulled crap like this they made her less worried about getting a lawyer and filing charges.

“I’m not going to yell at Parker,” she said finally, aware that she hadn’t actually responded out loud to Eliot’s suggestion. “We’ve just got to get a couple things straight between us.”

Access to the roof was a door at the top of a relatively short staircase, and not some kind of funky ship’s ladder set-up – for which Maggie was abruptly grateful. Emerging into the gently fading light, she spotted Parker immediately, standing at the parapet, looking off into the distance.

Reaching up automatically, Maggie gripped Eliot’s shoulder. “I got this,” she told him gently, when he turned to face her. “Just make sure we have some privacy.”  
********************************************  
Even at a distance, Parker could hear the door to the roof open. Turning just far enough to see which of her boys was coming to check on her this time, she saw Eliot and a woman with shoulder length golden hair a shade lighter than her own. _Maggie._

Throat tightening against a surge of emotion that was part fear, part excitement, Parker turned back to the view she’d been contemplating a moment before and began running a set of calculations in her head. By the time she sensed Maggie at her back and heard the woman say, “Parker,” she was able to conclude that the nearest building was too far away for a base jump without any sort of rig to help her clear the distance.

Turning around slowly, she nodded at her visitor. “Sophie call you?”

Mercifully, Maggie’s expression was neutral. Anything else, and Parker knew she would have just thrown herself over the parapet and taken her chances. “I’m glad she did. And I’m sorry you didn’t feel comfortable telling me yourself how you felt.”

 _Dammit._ Parker looked up, trying to will the sudden ache at the corner of her eyes to go away. “It’s just a crush,” she said, forcing herself to look at Maggie again as she spoke. “You don’t tell your crush how you feel.”

“Is that what Sophie told you it was?”

The question confused Parker. _”It’s nothing. Seems she’s got a little crush on Maggie.”_ Then Nate’s voice. _”I thought it might be something like that. Should I talk to her?”_ Sophie had laughed then, and only now remembering the moment was Parker aware that the laughter had hurt.

_”Oh darling, I wouldn’t worry about it. She’ll get over it. We women always do.”_

“Parker.” She flinched, feeling Maggie’s hand on her arm. “You should have told me how you felt.”

“Why?” Parker knew she sounded wrong, like some kind of whiny kid, but this was uncharted territory for her – without Sophie to run to for advice, she was in decidedly unfamiliar waters. “You don’t feel the same way about me.”

She felt genuinely sick to her stomach at the small shift in Maggie’s expression. _If she laughs at me too…_ A moment later, her world tilted dangerously on its axle as Maggie said gently, “You never gave me a chance.”

Parker felt like the wheels in her brain had slipped several gears. “You don’t like women..?” It came out part statement, part question; now she was mentally reviewing everything she knew about Nate’s ex-wife. “Not like that. You’re…you’re normal. You like boys. Men.” Annoyed with herself, she exhaled sharply. “You’re…straight!”

Something odd was in Maggie’s expression now, something that made Parker want to be very still and very quiet. “Normal isn’t the same thing as common, Parker. You get that, right?” Maggie’s voice was neutral enough as she asked the question, but there was still something lurking behind the words – a shadow of old pain Parker couldn’t quite wrap her head around. “Straight isn’t normal.” Maggie’s fingers sketched air quotes around the word. “Straight just is. And no, for what it’s worth – I’m not straight.”

 _Bisexual._ Parker had first encountered the word when she was thirteen, following her release from juvie. Still angry at Kelly for abandoning her, she had spent several months generally avoiding boys her own age and slightly older – choosing instead to bond with two girls she met one night in a park under a full moon. Abigail was fifteen, Molly was twelve, and the two of them had a system worked out for themselves that kept them reasonably safe and fed at least once a day.

They hadn’t trusted Parker at first, but once she showed them that she could contribute to their system they’d given her the closest thing to a true family she would know until meeting Nate and the others.

“Have you ever kissed a girl?” Maggie’s voice startled Parker back into the present.

Scrambling to put herself in the moment – this was one of those ‘important conversations’ Sophie was always going on about, after all - and come up with an answer, Parker finally nodded. “Couple of times. I was thirteen the first time. Abigail told me if I decided I was bisexual – instead of just liking girls – it was probably better not to tell people because they could get weird about it.”

 _”If boys find out you like both types, they’re going to want to have sex with you,”_ Abigail had said. _”And not because they like you or anything – boys just have this thing about getting to see girls naked.”_ It was admittedly simplistic – a teenager’s view of things – but while Parker had eventually reached that awareness for herself, she had also learned along the way that just because Abigail was teaching her about human sexuality from a fifteen year old’s perspective didn’t necessarily mean she was wrong.

“I was fifteen,” Maggie said. “She was three years older; a student-teacher at my high school. We got in trouble for it, but I’ve never forgotten how she made me feel.”  
**************************************************  
It was so easy for people to write Parker off, Maggie realized. _Crazy…damaged…broken…_ Nate and his bunch had done their best, but how often had a hole in the thief’s understanding of the world been brushed aside with a casual, “it’s just Parker”? Even thinking about it here and now sparked a surge of protective feelings in Maggie towards the younger woman.

“Did you tell Nate you were bisexual?”

The question startled a smile out of Maggie. She had been in what she thought was a serious relationship when she’d met Nate, and while her family had plenty to say about the high-maintenance Bulgarian dancer she’d been living with, Nate had taken it in stride. Out loud though, all she told Parker was, “He knew. He was okay with it, too.”

“Do you think I’m bisexual?”

 _Careful…_ The easy answer was ‘of course you are’, but Parker wasn’t stupid or somehow emotionally stunted; she’d just had unreliable teachers along the way helping her navigate what was nearly always a complicated journey. “I think,” Maggie said, moving slightly closer to the thief, “that’s a question only you can answer, Parker.” Reaching out, she took the other woman’s hand in hers.

Muscles flexed and tensed against her palm, but Parker didn’t pull away. Encouraged, Maggie pressed forward. “If the idea makes sense to you and fits what you understand about yourself, then the answer is probably yes.” She offered Parker a small smile. “And if somewhere down the line you decide that another label works better for you – or that you like having no label at all – there’s no shame in embracing that instead.”

 _God, she really is pretty._ It was an artistic acknowledgement as much as anything, but now that she was considering Parker as something more than just an overgrown kid, Maggie couldn’t help appreciating that there was a lot to like standing in an easy arm’s reach.

“I really want to kiss you right now,” Parker said suddenly; the edges of her cheeks going a faint red. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

Maggie laughed softly, ducking her head slightly but making sure Parker understood she was nodding as well. “Yes Parker – wanting to kiss someone is okay. It’s even okay to tell them that’s what you want.” A surge of sudden panic shot through her as Parker took an abrupt half-step forward, leaving Maggie momentarily breathless. “Going ahead and doing it, however…”

Parker seemed to have already realized her mistake. “Consent. Sophie and I talked a lot about that. I forgot.” She started to pull her hand free, but Maggie tightened her grip.

“The point is, you remembered in time,” she said, catching Parker’s gaze and holding it. “And even if you’d forgotten and I’d said I didn’t want to kiss you, I’m betting you would have stopped and apologized, right?”

“Of course!” There wasn’t any hint of hesitation in Parker’s voice as she answered. “I don’t want to do something you don’t want to do.” She paused, her expression falling somewhat. “What do you want to do? I’ve told you how I feel, but…you haven’t really said anything.”

Steeling herself, Maggie patted their joined hands. “I have told you. I don’t know how I feel.” Knowing that the thief would likely need a more concrete reassurance, she searched frantically for a path that could lead them in some sort of positive direction without rushing into something neither one of them was ready to take on. “As far as doing something goes – why don’t we go set something to eat and talk? Normal talk – no stress,” she finished, lest Parker think that she wanted to talk more specifically about whether the two of them could make a relationship work.

Fortunately, the thief seemed to be on the right page about that. “Getting to know you talk,” she said, and Maggie nodded.

“Maybe afterwards we could talk about me sketching you?” she offered, as the two of them made their way towards the stairs. “I was just thinking that you have really pretty features, and you’re flexible enough to give me good practice on my anatomy work.”

“Sure!” Parker said, sounding genuinely enthusiastic about the possibility of posing for Maggie. “We can do it at my warehouse – there’s lots of space, most of my gear, and nobody’s going to complain if I take my clothes off.”

To her credit, Maggie only hesitated half a heartbeat before following Parker down the stairs. _Walked into that one,_ she thought, shaking her head and continuing on after the thief.

Despite what the team thought of her, Maggie had never been good at being the responsible one.


End file.
